Our Daily Ocean: Day 8

After dinner on Monday (Labor Day), my husband, three children and I headed over to Wrightsville Beach.  AND... guess what?!?  We-- FINALLY-- made it to the North end of the beach!!  

It was high tide and there was a really nice wind.  I was a little bummed to see it was high tide and windy... it means that the ocean (more than likely) swept away some of the litter left from the holiday beach goers and the wind buried more.  BUT... the ocean and wind didn't get everything.  Access 3 had the 3rd most amount of litter  that we've picked up since we've started this... (spots one and two both go to Access 36-- good news... our family has adopted Access 36!!).  Better news... Access 3 had the least amount of butts!!  

Did you know that the California bill (AB 1998) to ban plastic carry-out bags failed in the California Senate??  I was bummed by this because I was so excited for the ripple effect that it could've had across our country.  Plastic bags are everywhere.... and Plastic bags BLOW!  (literally and figuratively)

Want to do something about plastic bags??  First and foremost,  ALWAYS say "No Thank You" to a plastic bag... even if it means carrying your groceries out in your hands or putting them back in your cart to push out to your ride.  AND... take a moment to read Beth Terry's post on Fake Plastic Fish about all the things we can do to support banning plastic bags!!!

Speaking of "Fake Plastic Fish"...  here's a little tidbit that I learned from that blog:  Gum is made from PLASTIC!!  Yup.  So when I saw this piece of gum (and several others)... I just couldn't leave it on the beach.

One thing that we found A LOT of at Access 3 was balloons.  It's such a bummer to see balloons as litter.  Just like plastic bags, sea turtles often mistake them for one of their favorite foods.  

It's been a few years now since I started saying "No Thank You" to balloons.  My kids would beg for them at my local grocery store... but it took my son visiting the Sea Turtle Hospital during SurfCamp for him to understand "why" we don't take (or accept) balloons.  Sometimes my youngest will ask for a balloon, but like many things I tell my kids:  "If we take one, they make one."

My husband saw a little crab dragging this piece of plastic into its hole.

                                    

20 minutes on September 6, 2010

Litter picked up by weight:  2 lbs 7 oz

Cigarette Butts: 120 (Sidenote:  we found lots of little nicotine pouches... seems a lot of people at Access 3 are trying to quit ;) )

Total amount of cigarette butts picked up off of Wrightsville Beach, NC in 8 days:

 2, 291

I take a good amount of pictures while we're out on the beach.  If you'd like to see more, check out my album on Facebook:  Our Daily Ocean